“What if he didn’t leave you as you think? What if he’s missing?”
Her honey blond brows pulled together. “I don’t understand the difference.”
“A whole lot of things have gone missing of late,” I said, a little chill running up my back. I ticked the items off on my fingers. “First, I lost my backpack with my keys and cell phone. That could have been stolen by someone passing by the house, but what if someone else took it?”
“Who?”
“Then my mother went missing,” I continued. “Then the Vikingahärta, and now Günter.”
“It seems very coincidental to me,” Imogen said doubtfully.
“Yes, I agree, it seems that way, but what if we’re meant to think that? Remember Loki’s oath of revenge, Imogen.”
She pursed her lips. “He would take from you that which meant the most to you.”
“Which I thought at first was my mother, but . . .” I stopped, not wanting to put into words what I was thinking.
“But that’s not what you love the most,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if it is or not. I love my mom. But . . .”
“But there is Ben, and your feelings for him must supersede all others.” She patted my wrist. “I understand. But does that mean that Loki is behind everything? And if he is, why would he whisk away your mother on a romantic whim when it is Benedikt who means the world to you?”
“I don’t know.” I slumped onto my side, curling into a fetal ball of depression. “And I’m not likely to find out without the Vikingahärta. Oh, goddess of the endless night. Imogen, what am I going to do?”
She tapped a long finger on her chin for a few seconds. “You’re going to find the Vikingahärta.”
“How? We don’t know if someone stole it, or if it’s lost, or even if Loki summoned it to him, or something impossible like that.”
“I wonder . . .”
I uncurled myself and looked at her. “You wonder what?”
“The lich who was seen around here yesterday.” She continued to look thoughtful. “I wonder if he could have been sent to take it.”
“Sent? Are liches some sort of minion or something?”
“Not really.” She suddenly smiled and sat down next to me. “I’m sorry, Fran. I forget you have a limited experience with the Otherworld. A lich is a being who was once dead, but who has been raised and returned to life.”
“A zombie? A zombie took my Vikingahärta?”
“No, not a revenant. A lich is raised by a necromancer, you understand. Those are powerful mages who utilize both dark and arcane sources of power, and by the act of raising, they sometimes imbue magic into the lich.”
“Oh, lovely. Magical zombies have stolen my valknut.” I wanted to laugh again, but had a nasty suspicion it would have a hysterical tinge to it.
“It won’t be easy finding the lich,” she mused. “If they are raised by a master necromancer, they are almost indistinguishable from a mortal. Except for their eyes.”
“What’s wrong with their eyes?” I had an image of bloody eye sockets and dangling optic nerves.
“They are black.”
“Big gaping black holes, you mean?”
“Black as in the irises are the same color as the pupils. All liches have black eyes. Well, most do. I have heard there is an exception, but that doesn’t concern us.”
“Oh? What’s the exception?”
“Dragons.”
I stared at her for the count of eight, then said, “Moving on.”
“Yes, I think that’s best. Well. We shall have to find the lich, I believe, and he will tell us who sent him to steal the Vikingahärta.” She got to her feet and started changing her clothes into a black leather cat suit.
“I suppose we could,” I said slowly, not convinced that the lich was the answer to the problem. “Although I can’t help but wonder about Mom. I never thought I’d say this, but if she’s just off on a romantic fling with a normal guy, then fine. But if Loki has seduced her somehow, is she safe?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Imogen gave me an impatient frown. “You’re not thinking, Fran. It must be jet-lag. If Loki seduced your mother just so he could harm her, then he would have done so by now. Either he’s seduced her in order to use her as bait to draw you in, or she’s off with a mortal. Either way, she is most likely unhurt and in love, as Absinthe told you.”
“I guess so. Back to the lich . . . we don’t know for certain that he took it. Forgive me, Imogen, but maybe Günter . . . ?”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t think it likely. If Günter wanted to steal the Vikingahärta, why send a lich?”
She had me there. “Good point. Where do we start?”
“Go change your clothes. Wear something tough. Leather is best, if you have it.”
“Er . . . will jeans do?”
“If that is all you have. Wear something you don’t mind getting dirty. I will meet you at my car in”—she consulted her watch—“half an hour.”
Seeing no other option, I agreed, saluted her, and headed off for my mother’s trailer.
I had just stepped into the darkened trailer when a big black shadow rushed me, smothering me in a cloying, sickening smell that sent me sliding into a dense abyss of nothingness.
Chapter 9
Sounds, thick and heavy, like they were wrapped up in thunder, rumbled in the distance, slowly, ever so slowly sharpening until I realized I was hearing two men talking.
“—you told me not to hurt her doing it, so I used chloroform,” one man said.
“Where the hell did you get chloroform?”
I frowned to myself. I knew that voice. It resonated within me. Through the dense fog in my brain, an image rose.
Ben! It was Ben.
The floor beneath me rocked. I cracked an eye open to see what was going on, and found myself held in Ben’s arms. “You got your cross back,” was the first thing I said, touching the Celtic cross he wore.
He smiled, his eyes so beautiful, so warm and sexy I just wanted to lick them.
“Drugged? Hrr?”
“Let’s sit you up. Maybe that will help.”
The world wobbled around quite a bit but finally settled into a familiar orientation, and after a few minutes to clear my head, I had enough wits to realize I was sitting on the ground, leaning against a smooth boulder, Ben squatting on one side of me while another man knelt on the other. Two camping lanterns sat next to them, casting a thin white-blue light around us. It was dusk, the sky a deep indigo, with just a smidgen of the moon starting to come up.
“Hello,” the man said, smiling broadly when I looked at him. He had kind of a singsong accent, something I hadn’t heard before. It sounded almost English, but wasn’t quite. It was a nice voice—not as intriguing as Ben’s, but nice. The rest of him wasn’t bad, either. He had a squared chin with a little cleft in it, very pale blue eyes, like polar ice, and reddish blond hair that made me think of the word “russet.”
“Hi. Are you the one who put a bag over my head and drugged me?”
